The life and times of Harry James Potter
by tmandragoran
Summary: This starts at the end of first year. Harry may be a Gryffindor but he also has a Slytherin side. Would that Slytherin part of him just let him go right back to playing exploding snap and Quidditch after going through a life or death situation?
1. Prologue: The hospital wing

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters

Summary: This will begin at the end of first year. Harry may be a Gryffindor but he also has a Slytherin side. Would that Slytherin part of him just let him go right back to playing exploding snap and Quidditch after going through a life or death situation?

AN: I have been an avid fanfiction reader for about 5 years now but I've never actually had the guts to try writing one myself…until now. This is just a small prologue. The first chapters will probably be pretty short but I'm hoping that once I get the hang of it the chapters will get a bit longer.

This will at first be pretty close to canon. The changes will be small at first but will continue to build up until I have (hopefully:-) a decent fanfic that I can call my own! Harry will not become superpowerful or have any powers that haven't been seen in canon (this includes him being the heir of one of the founders or merlin)

English is not my native language so I apologise for any mistakes I'm going to make, spellchecker will only do so much. As for reviews as long as your polite I don't mind critical reviews since I'm still learning here. And now, on with the story…

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**Prologue: The hospital wing**

Harry Potter couldn't sleep. He turned around for the sixth time in less then five minutes. Sighing, he gave up and kicked back the blankets. It wasn't as if the bed was uncomfortable, he doubted madam Pomfrey would allow a single bed in her infirmary to even have the slightest bump. No, the thruth was Harry couldn't stop thinking about recent events. Not two days ago he and his two best friends, Hermione and Ron, had gone down the trapdoor and confronted professor Quirell. Merlin, just the memory of it all was enough to make Harry shiver. When Quirell had taken of his turband and given Harry his first glimpse of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Voldemort. The dark lord himself. All he had been able to think at the sight was that this was him, this was the man …no monster who had taken his parents from him and had tried to kill him. Never before in his life had Harry felt such anger, such hatred for another being. The force of the emotion had scared him but at that moment the fear had been drowned out by anger. Now that the adrenaline and rush of the moment had passed, that fear had reared it's ugly little head again.

"Oh, get a grip Potter, you're still alive aren't you?", he asked himself aloud.

"Yeah for now."

"What do you mean for now? We made it through! The stone is destroyed and Voldemort is gone."

"Oh for the love of… will you use that gray lump that you call a brain for a moment! What did professor Dumbledore say?"

"Euhm.. that there were other ways in which he could return."

"Bravo! Your not completely hopeless yet. And what do you think he's going to do when he finally regains his body, hhmmm?"

Harry was silent for a moment. Arguing with yourself was one thing, but losing said argument? Now that was just sad. His mind however wouldn't let him rest until he at least aknowledged the truth. Your average Gryffindor might have been able to just dismiss the whole thing, but the sorting hat hadn't nearly placed him in Slytherin for nothing. Beneath his Gryffindor bravery and boldness (or as professor Snape would say foolishness) there was quite the devious little mind. Harry let out a loud sigh.

"Fine, let's go over this one step at a time. Dark Lord assembles a group of followers and begins his reign of terror, Dark Lord goes to kill a small family, he kills the adults, turns on the baby and… fails to kill him. The result, he's reduced to a ghostlike state. Ten years later Dark Lord using the body of the DADA professor is about to get his grubby little hands on the sorcerer stone. Said stone will not only restore his body but will also make him immortal. At the last moment that same boy stumbles in, somehow not only gets hold of the stone but he also destroys your host body.

Now here's a question for you: what would you do, if you were the dark lord, when you finally regained a body?"

"Errh, get revenge on that boy?"

"Ladies and gentlemen, the potter has landed!"

Silently cursing his own traitorous mind, Harry closed his eyes and finally gave in to sleep. A single thought still burned brightly in his mind.

"I'm in sooo much trouble!"


	2. Privet Drive

AN: well here 's the next part. I'm going to try and make each chapter a bit longer then the previous until I'm comfortable enough with writing to turn out decent sized chapters instead of these two page wonders:)

I got my first review! WWHHIEE! cough right euhm anyway… Many thanks to **Deanine** for reviewing. I hope you like the rest of the sory as well.

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**Chapter 1: Privet Drive**

It had been four days since the end of term and life at Nr. 4 Privet Drive had changed drastically for all it's inhabitants. The Dursley afraid that Harry would practice magic on them, could no longer treat him as they had for the first ten years of his life. Vernon Dursley had to do various chores in and around the house such as mowing the lawn instead of just reading his paper and ordering 'the boy' around. Petunia had to cook and clean by herself now and young Dudley was denied his favorite game, harry hunting. The Dursleys were therefore less then happy with these new arrangements. One inhabitant of Nr. 4 Privet Drive however was more then happy with the new circumstances and that was Harry Potter.

Following his night in the hospital wing Harry had decided to put a bit more effort in his education. Having a Dark Lord intending to kill you will make you take things like that a bit more seriously after all. So he had started by rereading his textbooks and notes. When he had searched through his notes though he had hit a bit of a snag. Packing his trunk had been an euphemism for simply throwing al his possessions in his trunk. Back at Privet Drive he had discovered that packing and throwing things inside were most definitely not the same thing. He had spent several hours sorting and ordering his now very wrinkled notes. He looked dejectedly at the small heap of parchments.

"Merlin, this is ridiculous. How am I supposed to study when my notes look like they've been through a war zone. Look at this, sentences scratched out, ink stains, FOOD stains and what not."

Hedwig offered a commiserating hoot. Harry smiled slightly at his feathered friend.

"And in four years I have to use this to study for my OWLS? Hedwig my girl, I think I have some rewriting to do."

Hedwig just blinked at him. Harry had seen quite a few fifth and seventh years panicking when they couldn't find a certain piece of parchment that just happened to contain some bit of crucial information they desperately needed and frankly he had no wish to someday be one of them.

"Hhmm, might as well do this right the first time, I don't really want to do this more then once. I could copy them in a muggle notebook or maybe even type them on Dudley's old computer."

After pondering this for a bit, Harry looked at his desk. There lay a letter to Flourish & Blotts asking about the course books for second years. Another moments hesitation and his decision was made. He would buy some empty books and copy his notes in those. One for each course. He could write a short summary of each chapter, followed by his own notes (and some of Hermione of course) and finally his homework. If he did this every year he should have an easier time when he had to take his OWLS and maybe even make Hermione green with envy. Snickering slightly at that thought he send Hedwig on her way with the letter. He looked at the sky for a moment wondering what Hermione and Ron were doing.

Three days later he received a letter and package from Flourish & Blotts. The package contained his Transfiguration, Charms, Potions and History of Magic books as well as six empty books with a dark leather cover. Putting the books aside for now, he opened the letter.

Dear Mr. Potter,

Enclosed you will find the by you ordered books. To our regret we could not deliver your DADA, Astronomy and Herbology books. We are expecting a shipment of books later this week and we would be more then happy to supply you with a copy of your Astronomy and Herbology books then.

Unfortunately we have not yet received confirmation from Hogwarts on which defense books the new DADA professor will be using this year. I have taken the liberty to add a short list of popular defense books that are on the same level as the first through third year curriculum at Hogwarts instead.

Sincerely,

Melvin Blotts

Flourish & Blotts

Harry looked at the list of books, there were six in total. Two were first year level books, three on a second year level and the final one was a third year book. Thinking it over for a bit he decided to get them all, after all he had plenty of time and the extra spells wouldn't hurt. He scribbled down his reply and send it off with the delivery owl.

He turned to examine his new purchases. The school books looked interesting enough, especially the charms book seemed to hold some interesting spells. He picked up one of the empty books and which seemed to have a note attached, reading it he saw it were some instructions on how to properly use the books. Apparently these books were most commonly used as either journals or as personal grimoires. Whatever you wrote on the first page would appear as the title on the cover and you could remove or add pages with a simple tap of your wand. Harry frowned for a moment, wondering if this would constitute as underage magic but he was soon reassured as he read the rest of the instructions.

"Right, let's get started. What to do first…"

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Three weeks later Harry Potter was lying on his bed looking as miserable as one could get. In a single day everything had gone to hell. First it was his birthday and yet he had received not a single letter from one of his friends, a fact that had not gone unnoticed by Dudley who took great pleasure in pointing this out to his freaky cousin. Then he had been told by his uncle Vernon that he was supposed to stay in his room all night because they were having potential investors for Grunnings coming for dinner and he didn't want them scared off by Harry's freakishness. That in itself hadn't been so bad, after all Harry had years of practice in staying away from guests. That evening Harry had been reading one of his new defense books while trying to ignore the noise coming from downstairs when suddenly the strangest little creature had appeared in his room.

Dobby, as the creature was named, had after warning Harry not to return to Hogwarts, admitted that he had been intercepting his friends' letters. For weeks Harry had agonized over the fact that he received no letters from his friends, thinking that they had forgotten about him. Now however it seemed it was him who had for all intent ignored their letters. Hopefully they would understand and forgive him once he explained the situation. If he ever got the chance to explain that is. Dobby had not taken his refusal to stay at home well and had levitated a pudding on Mrs. Mason's head. His uncle of course thought Harry had been the culprit and to make matters worse he had then received a letter from Mafalda Hopkirk of the Improper Use of Magic Office. His uncle had wasted no time after that in putting bars on his window, a padlock on Hedwig's cage and locking his trunk in the cupboard downstairs.

So now Harry was lying on his bed desperately wishing for the month to fly by so he could escape the Dursley's and return to Hogwarts.

Three days later Harry got his wish, well partly that is. True, being broken free by a trio of slightly insane redheads in a flying car wasn't exactly what he had been wishing for but Harry had learned long ago to take what he could get. Giving a last cheerful wave at his furiously shouting uncle, he turned too his jailbreakers and asked where they were going.

'The Burrow!", shouted the three redheads together.


	3. The Burrow

**Chapter 2: The Burrow**

Harry speared another sausage with his fork and happily took a bite off it.

"Hungry are you?" Mrs. Weasley asked him with a smile on her face.

"Yes ma'am. This is really good."

"Oh, it's just ordinary food, dear. Nothing special."

Harry just smiled at her and continued eating; compared to the food at the Dursley's this was heavenly.

"Well, eat up dear you're looking far too thin as it is, there's plenty more where that came from." she said.

Mrs. Weasley started filling him up another plaid with food all the while muttering about muggles and starving the poor boy.

"You've done it now Harry," Ron laughed at him "she'll be fattening you up for the rest of the month."

"Yeah, by the time we go back to Hogwarts we'll have roll you onto the train!" laughed Fred.

"Maybe we should get him a second broom, his Nimbus 2000 might not be enough by then to lift him up in the air," said George.

"Splendid idea, Fred. We could tie them together, you know, one for each…"

"That's enough out of the two of you, Fred and George" Mrs Weasley interrupted "let the poor boy eat in peace or you'll be on degnoming duty faster then you can say Quidditch."

"Yes Mum" "Only joking, mum"

Harry had to fight off a smirk, the twins may be incorrigible pranksters but it seemed their mother knew exactly how to rein them in. Might make good teasing material if he ever needed them to back off a bit. His thoughts were interrupted when another redhead entered the kitchen.

"Mum… mummy, have you seen my jumper?"

The girl, whom Harry assumed was their sister Ginny that Ron had told him about, came to a jarring halt when she saw him sitting at the table. Not wanting to seem rude Harry decided to greet her and introduce himself.

"Hello, nice to…"

That was about as far as he got before the girl's face became as red as her hair, she squeaked, turned around and ran back upstairs as fast as her legs could carry her. Confused Harry turned to Ron and the twins.

"Don't mind her. She's just being shy. Quite a relief really, normally she wont ever shut up."

"Oh come now Ron, you know it's more then that!" said George.

"Yeah, she's been talking about young Harry here ever since we got back from school." Fred added.

"She has?"

"Oh yeah, she seems quite taken with you, Harry." George said with a wide grin.

"And why shouldn't she be, my fair twin? After all he's such a strapping young man!"

"Good at Quidditch too…"

"Fairly handsome if a little skinny…"

"But our dear mother will put some meat on his bones fairly quick…"

"So all in all it seems as if our dear little sister…"

"has a crush on you!" they both finished with identical gleeful grins.

This time it was Harry who was blushing. All three redheads had a good laugh at the mortified look on his face. Fortunately Harry was saved from any further embarrassment by the entrance of yet another redhead, who turned out to be Mr. Weasley.

Of course, Harry's luck didn't last long. Mr Weasley it seemed was fascinated with muggles and apparently he had the strangest ideas about some of the things they used. Harry was currently trying to explain to a somewhat bewildered Arthur Weasley that a rubber ducky was in fact a kind of child's toy and not some kind of mysterious hunting tool the muggles used on a duck hunt. Of course the occasional 'helpful' comment from the twins didn't help much.

Fortunately Mr Weasley went upstairs pretty quickly to rest after his busy night, leaving Harry to eat his breakfast relatively peacefully.

Ginny and Percy finally joined them a few minutes later, Ginny still blushing bright red. Harry tried his best to school his face in a pleasant but neutral look whenever she would knock something over or when she put her elbow in the butter dish, all the while desperately trying to ignore the sniggering from the younger Weasley brothers next to him or the occasional comment from one of the twins.

"Come on, Harry. Hurry up. We're going to set up a Quidditch game in the paddock, us against the twins."

"Oh no you don't, Ronald Weasley! Have you finished your homework yet?" asked Mrs Weasley, making an excited Ron come crashing back down to earth.

"MOM! Harry just got here. I can't do homework now! Harry would be bored without me. Besides I have a whole month to do it, that's plenty of time."

"Harry will enjoy himself just fine without you Ron and you already had a month to finish your homework. It's your own fault that you haven't yet."

"But…"

"NOW, Ronald Billius Weasley!"

Sighing Ron got up.

"Come on mate, the faster we finish this, the faster she'll let us play Quidditch."

"Err, sorry Ron but I've already finished mine. I did it the first week back." Harry said with a slight grimace.

"You have?" exclaimed an incredulous Ron.

"Yeah, I didn't have anything else to do so I did all my homework and even started reading some of our books for next year."

By now Ron's jaw was virtually hanging on the floor.

"Damn mate, I knew it was bad at the muggles but if I had known it was THAT bad…"

"Ron! Language! And there's nothing wrong with wanting to do well in school. You'd do well in studying a bit more as well, like Harry here and that nice Hermione girl you told me about."

Ron meanwhile seemed to have lost all cognitive ability and just stared in horror at his mother. Finally he seemed to shake himself out of his stupor and trudged upstairs, knowing better then to argue with his mother when she was like this.

The twins and Ginny were laughing at Ron's slumped shoulders as he made his way upstairs, wishing him well with all his homework on such a sunny day while they would be playing outside. Harry couldn't keep a smile off his face as he watched his friend walk upstairs as if walking to his doom.

Mrs Weasley though had other plans and now that Ron was gone she turned on her next victims, the twins.

"Don't think the two of you are getting away that easily, Fred and George Weasley! You'll be doing your homework as well before going off playing Quidditch."

"No worries mom, we're nearly finished with ours." Fred quickly replied.

"Yeah, we're just waiting for Lee to send back a book he borrowed to finish our Charms homework." George added.

Mrs Weasley looked suspiciously at the twins for a moment before seeming mollified and returning to cleaning up the breakfast table. Harry sensing an opportunity to deliver some payback for all the teasing during breakfast, quickly adopted an innocent expression.

"But last night in the car you said…" Harry trailed off, shooting a guilty look at Mrs Weasley.

Mrs Weasley whirled around.

"WHAT! Upstairs RIGHT NOW, both of you! And don't even think about coming downstairs until your finished! GO! Of all the… The two of you will be degnoming the garden for the rest of the summer if you don't get up there right now and start doing your homework!"

"What? But mom…"

"Mom, he's…"

"NOW!"

The twins were up in a flash and half running towards the stairs. When they looked back for a moment, Harry innocently waved at them, mouthing 'Have fun' to them. Behind him Ginny was giggling furiously and even Percy had a slight smirk on his face.

'No wonder the twins like pranks so much. This is fun,' Harry thought to himself. ' I'm definitely going to pull a few pranks this year and I can already think of the perfect victims.'

Mrs Weasley went back to cleaning the kitchen and Percy went back upstairs muttering something about having to write an important letter. This left just Harry and Ginny.

"So, would you mind showing me around a bit?" Harry asked cautiously, hoping to bring her out of her shell a bit.

Ginny who had still been laughing at the twins, went still and looked at him with wide eyes. The by now familiar blush creeping up her face.

"Oh go on you two. Go outside and have some fun. No point in sitting inside on such a beautiful day. I'll call you when lunch is ready"

Ginny shot a betrayed look at her mother before timidly leading Harry outside. Harry sighed and followed her out. Hopefully she would get over her embarrassment pretty soon otherwise it was going to be a long couple of hours. From what Ron had told him she was actually pretty fun to be around, he just had to find a way to get her to actually talk to him instead of just squeaking and blushing.

Fortunately after a few hours she had loosened up a bit and was keeping Harry rolling on the ground with laughter by telling all sorts of embarrassing stories about her brothers. Ron had been right, Harry decided that night when he was laying on the spare bed in Ron's room, Ginny was a lot of fun once she relaxed a bit around him.

August 12 they finally received their Hogwarts letters. Their new defence teacher really seemed to like this Lockhart chap by the look of their booklists. All thoughts about school were quickly pushed aside though by the prospect of Quidditch. Today Ron and the twins had finally completed their homework to the satisfaction of Mrs Weasley and were therefore allowed to play Quidditch. Harry and Ginny shot each other sly winks, they had been practising some plays together that they couldn't wait to try out on the others. Over the past week they had become friends and Ginny seemed more relaxed around Harry now although she still blushed quite a bit whenever he stood close to her.

The following week they went to Diagon Alley for the day to buy their supplies. Ron and Harry had received a letter from Hermione stating that she too was coming to buy her supplies that day and both boys were anxious to see there friend again.  
After some initial trouble, Harry landing in Knockturn Alley, they met up with the Granger family at the entrance of Gringotts. Hermione had been ecstatic to see them again and soon they were happily chatting away about everything they did this summer. When Ron mentioned Harry's new work ethic Hermione had positively beamed at him.

In Flourish & Blotts they finally learned why they were forced to buy all the books from Gilderoy Lockhart. The boys had all rolled their eyes at each other after hearing the prat proudly announce that he was to be their new DADA professor. They had left the shop as soon as possible, running into Lucius Malfoy on the way out. It was a very tired yet relieved Weasley family plus two that stumbled out of the fireplace that evening.

On the evening of August 31st the whole family was sitting in the living room enjoying their last night of the holidays after a veritable feast from the hands of Mrs Weasley and an amazing fireworks display from the twins. Harry sighed contently from the couch upon which he sat and looked over at his friends. Ron and Hermione were once again arguing over something while playing chess, Harry silently laughed and looked over at Ginny. She looked up as she felt his eyes on her and he gave nod towards the arguing couple with a slight smile. Ginny however didn't return his smile, instead she blushed and went back to writing in her diary. Harry gave another sigh at that. Ever since their trip to Diagon Alley she seemed to have reverted back to blushing and stammering whenever he spoke to her.

He glanced at the twins who were hunched over a scroll of parchment next to the fire, whispering furiously at each other. Mrs Weasley was dividing her attention between her knitting and shooting suspicious glances at the twins. A movement by the door drew his attention and he barely kept from groaning out loud. Every evening Mr Weasley would approach him with one his muggle device for Harry to explain. It wasn't as if he really minded but Mr Weasley it seemed had a rather eclectic collection of muggle technology and absolutely no idea what any of them did.

"Ah Harry my boy, I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time?"

"Arthur, leave the poor boy alone. It's his last night here. Don't go bothering him with your toys now."

Seeing Mr Weasley's hopeful face though Harry couldn't turn the kind man away.

"It's alright, Mrs Weasley, I don't mind."

Mr Weasley beamed at him and proudly showed him his latest muggle collectable.

"I got it from one our raids last week. A chap named Vulvos had it. I think it's some kind of muggle massage machine. See, you have to put batteries in here and…Harry? Are you alright?"

Harry had nearly fainted from shock when he had seen Mr Weasley's new device. When he had started explaining what he had discovered about it so far, Harry had started edging away from him as quietly as possible.

"Euhm…Mr Weasley, I…I think that…erhh that is… Hermione might be better at explaining this. Yeah, that's it, hermione!"

Confused Mr Weasley turned to question Hermione about the little buzzing device. When she saw what it was however she blushed bright red and began stammering. By now everyone in the room was watching them, interested in why such a harmless looking thing seemed to have such a forceful reaction from the two teens. Completely bewildered now, Mr Weasley turned to Harry again.

"Well, do you at least now what it's called, Harry? I have to add it to Vulvos' file on Monday."

Mortified Harry continued to edge towards the stairs.

"It's..erhh…a vibrator, sir."

Then he rushed upstairs as if Voldemort himself was chasing after him, Hermione following directly behind him leaving a very confused wizarding family behind.


End file.
